States where wind power grew fastest in 2012

Wind energy enjoyed a record year of installations in the US in 2012, adding 13,124 megawatts of capacity, according to the American Wind Energy Association. That new capacity &#8212; the...

Wind energy enjoyed a record year of installations in the US in 2012, adding 13,124 megawatts of capacity, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

That new capacity — the most added ever in a single year in the US — brings the total level of wind capacity to mre than 60,000 megawatts, AWEA reported today.

That achievement, underwritten by $25 billion in private investment and supported by production tax credits which Congress renewed for 2013, means that wind was the “the number one source of new U.S. electric generating capacity,” according to the industry group. Put another way, wind provided around 42 percent of all new generating capacity, more than any other single energy source.

The top states for adding wind power in 2012 (and how much capacity they added) were: